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Saturday, September 7, 2013

Well! Its been quite some time that I did not log on to my blog because I was busy moving house from a private quarter to one of school's staff quarter. Thanks to the school administrative team for allotting me the quarter. The quarter badly needed a major repairing though. None of its water pipes and flushes were working. Just two electric sockets were alive. All fans were dead except for one in the bedroom. The wooden door frames were falling off like a snow avalanche. The kitchen was musty and the smell of fungus was pervasive throughout. The walls which were once immaculate were smudgy and a child must have doodled on it. There were pencil drawings, crayon coloring and marker pen scribbles. The floor was smudged by dirt and foot-marks. Cobwebs were everywhere on the ceiling. The window glasses were just good enough to see hazy images outside. The apartment just looked as though no human ever lived there. It took me more than a week to finish the repair works and I am glad that I could transform a shabby, unconditioned, messy house to a clean living apartment.

Even though I made the house ready, it was even more tedious to pack and load my home-property from the apartment i was leaving; and to unload and put them in the new house. But thanks to an army of students who were waiting for my arrival in the school to help me. What took some 3-4 hours to load, they did the unloading and putting-in work in just few minutes. Thank all once again. It would have been a mammoth task for a single person. At last, it seemed like everything had been done. But what lied next was even more daunting-ordering the house!! A huge clutter of things, mostly bits and bobs-where to start from? where are my slippers? where is my wallet? I nearly went crazy. I felt like i was sent to Memelakha to sort the whole rubbish. I did a DIY and it took me almost four days to place things back in order. When everything seemed to have settled and when I had just put my tired body to sleep, my wife who had been resting all the while wailed out 'Tshewang I cant bear it any longer' She has been patiently holding her labor pain. It was 11:00 pm. We rushed to the hospital. She was put in the labor room. She writhed in pain for 3 hours during which I could just stand by her doing her some massage. At 2:20 am she gave birth to a healthy boy. But that's another story. Perhaps more on it in the next post.

Now that I have shifted to the school staff quarter, things have become much easier for me. I can wake up at 8 am, wash at 8:05 am, eat breakfast at 8.10, get dressed at 8:15 and walk to the schools at 8:15:02 am and directly monitor the morning SUPW which starts at 8:15 am. It would not be a problem even if i work overtime in school because i don't have to worry over having to travel any distance to get home.

Well! You see, I was sucked into a host of important thingsthe whole of the earlier month. I couldn't get my broadband connection to my new house until yesterday. When I logged on to my blog to check what bloggers have for me, I found most bloggers answering a set of questions initiated by Rekha Monger (i Relate To That). I wondered if the questions were meant for all bloggers or only for those who have been tagged. A question sprang in my mind. Should I answer them? Am i worth answering the questions? Are these questions only for those who have been tagged? I got cold feet. However on reading closely I found this sentence in Rekha's post 'In case you are not tagged, you can tag yourself and play along' which meant anyone could answer. So i picked nerves from the sentence to move ahead and answer the questions.

1. Why did you start blogging in the first place? And what's the story behind your blog title?

I heard this word 'blog' a long time ago when I was in high school and my immediate thought was that blogging could only be done by foreigners. I also had the notion that to create a blog would require great deal of technical knowledge. Later, in 2009 I came across our present PM Tshering Tobgay's blog. It was only then that I knew that blogging could be done by Bhutanese as well. When I became an active facebook user I found many blog posts posted on facebook and the first I read was of Pssang Tshering's (aka PaSsu) PaSsu Diary. His blog was a door through which I came across many other Bhutanese bloggers. I checked his blog lists and was surprised to mind many Bhutanese bloggers. Entering Bhutanese blog-sphere gave me so much inspiration that I landed up creating one of my own. So, thanks to PM Tshering Tobgay's blog for throwing the first light on blog, facebook for introducing PaSsu Diary and PaSsu Diary for helping me connect with other Bhutanese bloggers.

Well! that's the first reason why and how I ventured into blogging. It was spurred by the inspiration i derived from other bloggers. The second reason like any other bloggers, is to raise language competency. As you can also find it in the 'About The Blog' page on my blog, I have poor command over language. As a teacher it is important to keep my language skills up. Although I am a science teacher, I think it is important to have good language in science too. I say this because many a times I have heard people say that science is not about language but its about how well we know scientific facts. But I believe that even in science we write a lot and it definitely entails language competency.As for my blog title, I call it 'The Novice Pen', as I am a novice blogger. I am not a good writer or a blogger but just a learner. I could not think of any simpler title than 'The Novice Pen' for a person who is bound to make myriad of mistakes in every sentence he writes. But it is my hope that with time The Novice Pen will grow.

2. How long have you been blogging? Where are you based?I have been blogging since November 2011. But if you look at my blog archive you will be surprised to find just few posts done thus far. Although my passion for blogging runs like fire I have not been able to post as frequently as other bloggers mainly for two reasons:

1. Teaching you know is a 'round-the-clock work' profession.

2. I am a poor writer.

But I snatch some time form my busy schedule for blogging and try to increase the number of posts.I am based at Samtse HSS.

3. How do you schedule your blog post? Daily or weekly? Or as and when inspiration strikes you?I don't have a schedule. Although I wish to feed my blog as many posts as possible, I do it only when inspiration strikes me. 4. Does your family and friends know about your blog?Not many people know that I run the blog and I wish to keep it obscure.

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comments:

I am very happy to know that PaSsu Diary helped you connect to other bloggers. When you started blogging I was very happy because there weren't many teachers blogging then. More teachers blogging, more understanding of this job among people. Lets continue this.

I'm so glad that one sentence from that post of mine sparked off your interest to come up with this wonderful post.And the blog post title...my name is screaming there, if you have read my post here i Relate To That I'm not much fond of my name :P

I don't understand why people have to move house when the wife is about to give birth? I've come across two of my friends who also moved houses on the due date of the baby lol...

Sir i am very much glad to see your this article with good justification for your start of blog and the title you chose. Well i could also have thought the same title since i too don't have good command over the language to attract the readers nor good structure beside myself being an English teacher. My intention behind my blog was just to store some moments for my daughter when i am away from her and gift it to her when she reaches the age of being able to read and understand. I was just inspired from Passu diary and indeed Passang sir and Damchoe sir they did help me to create a blog for self.The journey of blog has just begun for me...has miles to go and hope i get to improve my write up.